About Cypher Play

Cyper Play is the OP program for Numenera and the Cypher System. It’s designed to be easy to administer and to help build a thriving RPG community around your brick-and-mortar game store. And it’s free—to the retailer, the organizer, and the players. We provide all the materials at no cost to you.

Expand opportunities for existing Numenera fans to play the game, to keep them engaged and active.

Provide opportunities for the Numenera-curious to give the game a try.

Minimize the effort retailers need to put into it, while still seeing a great return.

Drive positive buzz and PR about the game.

Through all these objectives, grow your local community of players.

To that end, the program:

Is exclusive to retail locations, with the intent of driving community and sales at retail stores. The program does not include home or convention play.

Is geared toward both beginners and experienced players.

Rewards participants for growing Numenera beyond the OP environment.

Incentivizes participants to shop for Numenera products at their local retailer.

Maintains Numenera’s high standards for design and production values and play experience.

Cypher Play is run in seasons. We plan three seasons a year, with each running for roughly four months.

Each season will typically have seven game sessions. You can schedule these however you like, but the default is to run a session every other week, with a little “blank space” at the beginning or end of the season.

Each session is intended to run about two hours in length.

Play is intended to be drop-in-drop-out friendly. The individual sessions are fairly forgiving of changes in player roster.

Players are given incentive to make purchases at the store. This includes coupons provided with the OP materials that can only be used at your store. MCG reimburses you for the coupons used, so there’s no cost to you.

Players are also given materials and incentive to run the adventures they play for their own gaming groups. This “Play On” aspect of the program is intended to extend its reach beyond the players who take part in it directly, and further grow your local community.

We provide fun and useful rewards to you (the retailer), the organizer, the GM, and players who participate in Play On activities.

One more note: Cypher Play is different from our Asset Team program. Asset Team members run demos at stores and conventions, and their activity is geared entirely at introducing our games to new players through one-shot activities. Asset Team Members can certainly be GMs for Cypher Play if they like, but the programs are not directly related.